My Bible, The Velveteen Rabbit and Becoming Real

Do you have a favorite Bible? We have countless Bible on our bookshelves—different translations, multiple copies of the same translation, different binding and covers, and an array of colors and styles. But I have a favorite.

In fact, I’ve written about it before. Last year in Share the Music, I wrote: I love my Bible…. This Bible, my red 1983 NIV, with its frayed spine and peeling cover, is my favorite. It is marked with pen, pencil, colored pencil and maybe even crayon. It is stained with tears and coffee. There are sermon dates and minister’s names scribbled in the margins….

Often when I think about certain scriptures, I can visualize where they are in this Bible, where the verse falls on the page. I’m so familiar with this particular Bible that I really don’t want to choose another when it comes time to study or read. This Bible is my friend. I’ve had it for over 30 years. It is one of my most prized possessions. For a long time, I put the dates that passages were used in sermons or teaching in the margins. My momma did that, too. She, too, used the same Bible for many, many years. It actually became a timeline for her spiritual journey. I remember leafing through her Bible after she died, noting the passages that had been preached on over and over again. Pastor’s names were scribbled in the margins, and now I find myself wishing I had kept up that tradition for as long as she did.

Perhaps the funniest thing I have written in my Bible is an entry made in 1990. It is written above Luke 10:25 and underneath the heading “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.” I have neatly penciled in—Seth Johnson The Nice American VBS 1990. Apparently that year at VBS many of the kids including Seth, who was almost 4, thought that the Bible story about the helpful and kind Samaritan was actually about a "nice American." As a person who worked with kids, I wanted to remember that. Still cracks me up.

I am thankful for my Bible. The way it feels in my hands, and the way it feeds my soul and shapes my life. For 30 years I’ve touched its pages and read the words, but there are so many things yet to learn, countless mysteries to uncover, deep truths to apply, and abundant beauties to discover. I am challenged by that thought and encouraged by it as well. “For the word of God is living and active.” (Hebrews 4:12, NIV). Praise God!

Last year, my daughter Susanna helped a friend pick out and purchase her very first Bible. Sitting in my living room, I watched two strong young women hold their Bibles in their hands, caressing the covers as they talked about how much they loved their Bibles. I watched the first-time owner carefully turn the pages, and I smiled with joy as she pressed her face into the pages to take in its smell. And I’m praying that her love affair with this book only grows deeper and that the powerful fragrance of the Word of God will always be a part of her life.

My heart nearly burst when Susanna went to the bookshelf and searched for the Bible storybook that was her first Bible. She is loaning it out for a while, so that her friend can meet the heroes of Scripture and have a foundation and framework to begin working with as she reads her new Bible. Not everyone grows up having heard the stories of the Bible repeatedly. There are those who do not know the stories of Joseph, Abraham, Noah, Peter, Paul, Deborah, Sarah, or Rachel.

Thank You, Lord, for that reminder, and thank You that there are still those who love Your Word and want to know it. There will probably be a day soon when I will have to make the dreaded trek to the Christian bookstore in search of a new daily Bible. I think about it with trepidation. But until then, and even after, I’m hanging on this this one for my very life, and I’m going to keep loving the words right off the pages.

A passage from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams applies to me and my Bible: “Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don’t mind being hurt. It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time….Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

You see, my Bible may be “loose in the joints and very shabby,” but I’m becoming more real.

Do you have a favorite Bible? How are you becoming more real?

Silly Band Bracelet

It all started with a silly band. You know those flimsy, rubber band bracelets for kids? It started with that. Mine was blue and shaped like a star. It was important.

Weekly devotions during the teacher’s meetings at my school are interesting. Let’s face it when you’ve walked with the Lord a long time, those kinds of things can be a struggle—at least for me. Heard it. Read it. Saw it. Same old, same old. I love the mornings when the speaker decides to put aside any thought of trying to impress us with some new theological insight or an interesting take on scripture and just tell us stories of how God worked in their lives at a particular time, in a particular way. Their personal stories aren’t things I’ve heard before. They are fresh. They are exciting. They move me.

So 21 days before Easter Sunday this year, one of the teachers shared the story of a group of friends who set out to go 30 days without complaining. To help them with this, they wore a bracelet. Each time they complained ,they physically moved the bracelet to the other arm—and started the count over. The story goes that at the beginning the bracelets moved back and forth from wrist to wrist fairly quickly. The teacher's challenge to us that day—as she passed out a silly band bracelet to each of us—was wear the bracelet and try to go for 21 days—until Resurrection Sunday—without complaining.

I took my blue star and promptly shoved it on my left wrist. I’m always up for a good challenge. Don’t complain. No big deal. I have will power. I have control. Not! Funny thing about an adult wearing a blue star silly band bracelet? Your high school students will ask you about it. So I got to share the story and my challenge with them. Then you know what they had the audacity to do? They held me accountable. 

One morning, before class started, a pop-culture topic came up, and I weighed in. I let the full force of my opinion loose in no uncertain terms. After what could only be described as a volcano of words, molten opinion and critical ash, one of my students politely pointed out that I should probably move my bracelet to the other wrist. Busted! So I did. I moved the bracelet. It had been on my left arm for several days. Move the bracelet. Start the count over.

Can I just tell you how hard it is not to complain? (That was a complaint about complaining!) I even found myself redefining “complaining.” I seriously had these conversations in my head, “It’s not complaining if I’m just stating the facts of what happened, is it?” Real answer? Sometimes, even the facts are a way to complain. But when I made it days in a row without having to move my bracelet, I was more at peace and more full of joy than other days. Did things happen that were perhaps worthy of my voicing a complaint? Absolutely! But the calm and peace that accompanied not giving voice to those complaints was palpable. 

I did not make it to Easter without complaining, but I did make it to Resurrection Sunday with a quieter spirit and a clearer focus on the good things, the blessings in my life that are so easy to just pass over. I didn’t take my bracelet off after the 21-day challenge was finished. I kept in on for weeks after until finally, it got caught on a dishtowel while I was drying my hands and broke. (But I’m not complaining.) 

You know what? I had had it on my left wrist—going quite a number of days without having to move it—and now I missed the weight of it.  The reminder of it. The absence of that thin, rubber band was significant. 

My blue star silly band is gone, but my commitment to live more days without complaining—to count them and pile them up—is not gone. I’m still working on my first 30-day stretch. Will you join me? 

What’s on your wrist?

Decisions, Decisions

Making decisions is hard. It’s a commitment. As long as all the options are open you can just float along—feeling powerful and in control, but really not at all.

So to face Jon Acuff’s #dosummer2015 is nearly paralyzing. Pick something--a new skill or lost art-- to work on for the next 100 days in 15 minute increments. The inner voice tells you the list is too long. The areas in which you need to improve, or just get back to, too varied, too big—unDOable! 

To put it lightly you’re overwhelmed, not by the looming days ahead that will mark your progress, but by the long list of self-inflicted need to self improve and the fear of making the call on the wrong area. Or maybe that’s just me.

That’s crazy talk, though. (I’ve found that much of my self-talk is crazy talk.) With the help of some friends, who are also taking the summer challenge, I've been given permission to choose more than one thing to work one. Did I tell you that I'm a rule keeper? They have helped me see that there can’t be a bad decision here. Choosing to walk into a time of focused effort is a good thing.

Therefore, in the spirit of silencing the crazy, here’s what I’ll be working on for #dosummer2015:

• Personal writing—journaling, blogging, notes to friends
• Yoga and healthy movement—regaining lost ground (at home and in studio)
• Piano—seriously anything will be an improvement here
• Teaching—reading, organizing, lesson planning, research (specifically for my chemistry classes)

There, it is written down, and it is varied for sure, but it’s settled. My DO Summer worksheets are printed and labeled. If you want to read more about #dosummer2015 visit http://acuff.me/dosummer2015/ to get started on your own journey this summer.

What will your life look like on the other side of summer?

Just another Tuesday night

Last night there was a situation in our neighborhood that resulted in the arrival of copious police cars, SWAT snipers, police dogs, riot gear.  The Smyrna Police department will release a statement later today, and I'm waiting for that because right now the four local news channels are reporting it all a little differently.  Which is sort of funny, but not so much.

The good news is that the professionals did their jobs with excellence and that there was no loss of life.  For that we are thankful.

Here are a few of my observations and questions from last night.  (I realize this was a serious and potentially dangerous situation for our neighbors and the police officers.  My comments here are not intended to make light of that fact.)

1.  When a SWAT sniper bangs on your front door at 9 p.m. while you're watching The Killing on Netflix do you ask for ID?  I didn't actually think of it until I was opening the door to the deck and he was already in my house.   That's probably too late.  Now the SWAT officer is standing in the doorway of the deck with all his gear trying to pull out his ID, which he finally admits is back at his vehicle.  He tells us we can call the Smyrna Police Department to verify that he is supposed to be there.  We do.  He is.  They give me his name.  I can't remember it.  Of course he assumed that we had seen all the police cars and such, but all that was happening on the street behind us.  And we were glued to the crime drama on Netflix oblivious to the actual crime drama happening right behind us.

2.  Ever wanting to be the gracious hostess, exactly how and when do you offer a beverage to the SWAT guy sprawled on your deck?  All we were able to do was eek out "Do you need anything?" from a crack   at the sliding glass door to which came the reply, "No.  Please stay inside your house."  OK. Will do.  Just wanted to make sure you weren't thirsty.

3.  Can you go to bed with a sniper on your deck?  Now, for some of you this is not a question at all.  You probably wouldn't have slept even after he left, but since I had already fallen asleep on the couch twice after he arrived (only to be awaken by gunshots--not from our deck by the way), I was seriously thinking about it especially not know how long this was going to be.  We finally decided that it would be rude to go to bed with a visitor on the deck, so we stayed up.  (Actually going to bed with a sniper on your deck could give a whole new meaning to "safe sex.")

4.  What does one say the police sniper when he leaves your house?  About 12:15 a.m. after spending 3 hours on our deck, he knocked at the sliding glass door and said that he was being deployed to another house.  This fine officer, who just had his rifle trained at our neighbor's windows where we could see movement inside the home, offered to come back and move our deck furniture into place, "if this all resolves well."  Michael told he we would take care of it.  We thanked him, and he hurried off reminding us to stay inside and away from windows.  "Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir!"  Just over an hour later four shots were fired and the incident ended.  Rubber bullets were actually used to disarm the man.  We don't know if they were from our sniper or not, but they didn't come from our deck.

5.  Apparently, when we are instructed to stay away from windows and move to the front of the house, we can do that with no problem and just continue to watch TV.  I did call a couple of neighbors to make sure they were OK since we didn't know exactly what was going on.  I'm not sure what that says about me and Michael, but I'm going to go with the "peace like a river" thing.  I don't always flow with that river, but we did last night.

6.  I keep wanting to make some snarky Smyrna vs. East Nashville remark because of that bumper sticker Daniel loves "East Nashville: Way better than Smyrna." But I can't make it happen.  If you come up with something let me know.

Pretty sure I'm going to need an extra cup of coffee and a nap, right after we move the deck furniture back into place.

Lessons from Acorns

I have been raking leaves.  It is the first of many leaf gathering sessions that will take place in my yard between now and the coming spring.  I have a love-hate relationship with the trees in my yard.  The trees are beautiful and their canopies have really grown and filled out nicely since we moved here 14 years ago.  They provide excellent shade in summer that helps cool our home, but that same shade makes it impossible for grass to grow.  The fall foliage is particularly brilliant this year, the best in many years, but I have allergies to oak.  So my battle with the leaves always turns into a physical battle of sneezing and itchy throat.  Not to mention the fact that the red oaks in our yard hang on to the last of their leaves until the new leaves are ready to come out in spring, so our leaf gathering lasts for months. Yes, it is definitely a love-hate relationship.

This year there is a new twist in the leaf gathering.  Well, it is not actually new, just more noticeable.  It is the acorns.  If you can have a crop of acorns then we have the largest crop of acorns I have ever seen.  If I had a nickel for every acorn on my lawn.... Well, you get the idea. 

While raking the first leaves I was amazed at the number of acorns.  They were plentiful and they were huge.  We have always had acorns, but not since we moved here have we had this many.  They are literally piles of them on the ground.  The other day, the wind was blowing and they were falling and hitting my son in the head as he played soccer in the driveway.  The complicated relationship continues.

While I continued to pick up leaves and let the acorns sift to the ground, I began to wonder about their abundance.  Why were there so many this year?  Then it hit me.  Well actually, I think God pointed it out to me.  The acorns are plentiful for the same reason the foliage is so colorful this year.  The drought ended.  For the first summer in many summers, we had plenty of rain.  Sometimes a little more than we thought we wanted, but we had rain.  The oak trees are fruitful because they have been well-watered. 

And there is the truth.  The trees are fruitful because they are well-watered.  That's the phrase the Holy Spirit drilled into my spirit.  “Keep yourself well-watered, Rhonda, and you will continue to bear a bountiful harvest.  If you stay in a spiritual drought condition your fruit is skimpy, shriveled, and sparse.”  Wow, I love it when God talks to me in easy to understand, direct applications.  I could not possibly misunderstand what He was saying to me. 

There are so many examples from nature that apply to our spiritual walk with Christ.  This is why the apostle Paul could, without pause, write in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”  (NIV)   I am uniquely thankful that God is willing to teach me and show me things about myself and about His wonderful, eternal nature in a mundane activity like raking leaves.

So look for the lessons.  They are out there.  Some of the most meaningful lessons are in the everyday, work-a-day, I've-done-this-a-million-times kind of things.  God shows up, and all of a sudden an acorn becomes a mighty oak of a life lesson.  Don't miss them.  Your next teachable moment with God may be while washing dishes, or filling your car with fuel, or purchasing groceries, or tending a sick child, or looking into the eyes of a student in your choir, or walking along a well-known path.  Be ready.  Be filled with the Word, so that when the lesson comes, you will know exactly how to apply it.  Stay well-watered.

How will you stay soggy and fruitful?

(This article was published in Share the Music, a newsletter published by Brentwood-Benson and distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation.  It is used here by permission.)

Quebecish

What languages are spoken in Quebec?  That was the question on a seventh grade geography test that my friend, Jeff, happened to be grading at my house the other day during a football game.  Unfortunately, one of his students answered this question with “English and Quebecish.” 

This answer sparked peals of laughter from the sports fans gathered in my living room.  While I was chuckling at the wonder that is the average middler schooler, I found myself thinking  “Everyone knows the answer is English and French.  I've always known that.”  But then I realized, that I couldn't have “always” known this.  I had to learn this.

Somewhere, at sometime, in a classroom far, far away, a teacher presented that piece of information in a meaningful way, and I remembered it.  Perhaps more accurately, the information was presented over and over in a variety of ways, and I learned it without even knowing that it had been learned.

That is a great thing about working with children and the truth of Scripture.  We get to present truths in a variety of meaningful ways.  We get to use music, games, stories, maps, crafts, movement, and play to teach students the truths that will change their lives.  We get to subtly, yet purposefully, weave truth into the lives of the children in our classes.

Sometimes when we present truth we see the spiritual lights come on.  We are there when the student really grabs hold of a truth and begins to live it out.  Those times are to be prayed for, planned for, sought out and treasured.

Many times, however, in our week to week classes we are laying a foundation that another will build on.  We see spiritual sparks that will later be fanned into flames.  We find ourselves living out John 4:37 “One sows and another reaps.” 

This is when we have to dig deep in our preparations and remind ourselves often of the joy of first discoveries.  We have to handle the truth with joy and awe as if we, ourselves, are learning it for the first time. 

The challenging part of this is that your lesson preparation can't be thrown together at the last minute.  You can't fake joy and awe.  I've written this before, but it bears repeating as we begin a new year together—give the Holy Spirit time to teach you before you try to lead your choir on a spiritual journey.  Give yourself time to remember when you first learned something.  It will help you be a better disciple.  It will help you be a much better discipler.

Finding joy and awe in English and Quebecish,

Rhonda

(This article originally appeared in Share the Music, a newsletter for Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation.  It is used here with permission.)

A Son Seeker

The other morning I snuggled into the corner of the couch and grabbed my One Year Bible.  It was early.  The house was quiet, and I had some catching up to do.  An unexpected trip and poor planning on my part found me on he next to the last day of the month with several days of reading to do to be back on track.  No worries.  I had a fresh cup of coffee, a clear head, clean glasses and a determined spirit to mark this off of my “to do” list for the day.

As I sat reading, I soon found myself in the glow of the rising sun.  The corner of the couch I had chosen is in the perfect position to get the full blast of morning sun.  In fact, if you are there at the right moment of the day, you will find yourself in the blinding glare of the morning sun.  The light is so intense you can feel it coming, creeping slowly up until it reaches the top panes and then, you have a choice,  you can move and avoid the glare or you can close your eyes for a few moments and soak it in.

That is what I did on that cold winter morning.  I chose to soak it in.  I closed my eyes, took a break from my Bible reading and let the sun warm my face and make the back of my eyelids glow.  It felt so good—physically and spiritually. I wanted to stay there in that light.  I wanted to sit with the Word in my hand and just bask in the sun.  I wanted it to last for hours, not just minutes.

But just like the sun faithfully does every day, it moved on up in the sky (or at least that is my perception of what happens) and the place where I sat became chilled and dim. I sat there for a few moments longer with my head back and my eyes closed wishing I could have made it last just a little longer.

Despite my wishing, I could not make the sun stay where I was.  If I wanted to remain in its forceful, powerful path, I had to move. I was completely comfortable on my couch.  But if I wanted the sun on my face, I was going to have to move to a new spot and keep moving.

I wanted to be stay on the couch where I was settled and cozy, but the sunshine was beckoning, “Come play over here! Come work here; serve here! Come glow here!  Come rest here, now!”  The light was on the move.

So there on that cold winter morning, the sunshine taught me a lesson.  Nature—God's eternal design—taught me a spiritual truth (Romans 1:20).  Stay in the light, walk in the light, live in the light.  Not for just a moment, but continually. 

The sunshine was making 1 John 1:7 come alive to me in a new and fresh way, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (NIV)  The  morning light was directing my thoughts to the Light of the world. (John 8:12)

Where is the Light beckoning you?  Have you felt the warmth on your face lately?  Have you sought out its intense beams?  Have the backs of your spiritual eyelids glowed in the fullness of His light?  Oh, I hope so. 

See you in the Son!

(This article was originally published in Share the Music, a newsletter for Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation.  It is used here with permission.)

My Bible, My Friend

Here is my facebook status update from November 28, 2011:

“On June 3, 1983 Michael Frazier gave me a Bible. It came so soon in our dating that I actually spelled his name wrong on the "Presented by" line. (Apparently yearbooks are not excellent sources for checking the spelling of names.) I have recorded the deaths of grandparents and my mom's passing in it. Today, I recorded the marriage of Daniel Frazier to Bethany Gray. It is worn and covered with notes of all kinds. I am thankful for my Bible, and the way it feels in my hands, and the way it feeds my soul and shapes my life.”

I love my Bible.  Except for my New American Standard Inductive Study Bible—which will always feel like a college textbook to me—and the Bible I carried in my wedding, all the Bibles I have personally owned have had red covers.  Probably not significant, but it is true.  But this Bible, my red 1983 NIV, with its frayed spine and peeling cover, is my favorite.  It is marked with pen, pencil, colored pencil and maybe even crayon.  It is stained with tears and coffee.  There are sermon dates and minister’s names scribbled in the margins. Scattered about over the words are symbols and arrows and exclamation points. A few pages are ragged at the edges, and there are sections that look barely worn (sorry, minor prophets).

Often when I think about certain scriptures, I can visualize where they are in this Bible, where the verse falls on the page.  I’m so familiar with this particular Bible that I really don’t want to choose another when it comes time to study or read.   This Bible is my friend. 

Psalm 19:7-8 says, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.  The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.  The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.”

I need all of these things.  I require reviving.  I need wisdom.  I desire joy.  I need my darkened eyes to receive the radiant light that His Word gives.  Don’t you need these things as well? What about your family and neighbors and the students in your choir?  God’s Word is there to bring these things and so much more.

Would you be willing to take a challenge?  Would you be willing to try to instill as much love for God’s Word in your students as you do love of music?  Would you be willing to help them encounter God’s Word in ways that are so meaningful to them that they develop a life-long friendship with their Bible, too?

Encountering God’s Word is life-giving.  It is not boring or stale or just something for grown-ups to do.  What will these “friendship encounters” with God’s Word look like in your classroom?  How can you marry the love and beauty and excitement of music with a love and passion for God’s Word? 

“The ordinances of the Lord…are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb” (Psalm 19:9-10).  Who doesn’t like gold and honey?  Make rich, sweet deposits into the lives of your students—through music and the Word.  It is a powerful combination.

Feasting on golden honey,

Rhonda

(This article originally appeared in Share the Music, a newsletter for Brentwood-Benson Music Publisihing, distributed by the Hal Leonard Corporation.  It was used here with permission.)

Music Memories

What are your favorite musical memories?  There are probably too many to count, but think about it for a bit.  What thoughts, feelings, or pictures from your past come rushing forward when you begin to reflect on the impact of music in your life?  

I grew up in a church tradition that regularly married the old and the new in music.  Every pew was outfitted with The Church Hymnal—loving referred to as the “Red-back Hymnal” even though in later years it could be purchased in a new-fangled green.  In fact, when I was little I thought that was the name of the book.  In addition to this hymnal, every year we got new paperback songbooks for the choir to use.  The songbooks represented a collection of new songs recently written and were filled with verses about salvation, God’s goodness, heaven and Christ’s return.  Alto and tenor leads were prevalent as shaped notes danced across the lines and spaces.

Back then, our choir was an “anyone who wants to sing come on up” group.  There were no formal choir rehearsals and song leaders chose the next song sometimes on the fly.  Children and adults were welcomed to head up to the choir loft, grab a songbook and belt out whatever you could bring.   The song leader never quite knew what cacophony of parts he would hear from the loft until we got started, but it usually worked its way out as singers shifted parts to accommodate the harmony or melody as needed.    It was at the same time chaotic and beautiful.  

One of my oldest musical memories is of my standing on the front row of the choir, holding my songbook in my little hands and realizing that the lyrics went in an order.   It was like a miracle to me when I realized that the first line of each stanza was sung first, then the second line, then the third with the chorus coming between them.  It seems funny now, but it was as if I had discovered some secret of the universe—a great mystery had been opened up to me.  What may seem strange to many is that I was allowed to go up and sing in the choir before I could read!

While I appreciate the heritage and tradition that I grew up in, I’m not advocating that you start an “everybody come on up” choir.  My challenge to you is for you to continually offer the children in your choir and congregation opportunities to build these kinds of lifelong memories with music.  Create an environment that allows them to encounter music in a life-changing way.  Give them opportunities to serve.  Give them opportunities to lead.  Make space for them to worship, not just in front of you, up alongside you.   

Researchers say that “smells” are the strongest of the memory triggers.  I don’t have any scientific data, but my own experiences tell me that music has to be pretty high on the list as well.  I’m sure that no one in my little church would have guessed that there was a moment on Sunday night when music and the world of reading collided, but it did.  What will the children in your choir remember 10, 20, 30, or 40 years from now?  

Vicious Cycles of Crazy

I know better.  You probably do, too.  We’re supposed to set boundaries.  We’re supposed to know when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”  We should be confident enough and self-assured enough to not get caught up in pleasing people.  Loving people—Yes!  Pleasing people—not necessarily!  Sometimes we confuse the two.  

Yet so many times, I find myself right back in a cycle of piling more and more stuff on my plate—more stuff than I have been given the grace to handle.  For me that is the key to knowing when I’ve taken on too much—there is no grace.  None extended to me, and especially none for me to extend to others.  I’m short-tempered, sleep deprived and hard to get along with—not very gracious.

Sometimes I live as if the concept of being “in over my head” is scriptural.  I function as if the only way to allow God to move in my life is for Him to constantly come to my rescue.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love being rescued.  I love when a deadline is looming, and I cry out in desperation for inspiration and help.  I love it when it comes.  And God is faithful.  He hears the cries of His people—even me.  

Often, I want to think that I would not have been so desperate if God had inspired me earlier, but  if I’m completely honest, earlier I was probably so busy with stuff I was not supposed to be doing that had inspiration dawned, I most likely would have used it on the wrong project, or I wouldn't have recognized it as inspiration at all!

When I get into these vicious cycles of crazy, I try to apply 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”  But then there’s the problem of the truth of this passage.  Grace is sufficient for my weakness.  While I’m piling on, saying yes to everything, and pretending to be a Jack of All Trades (and clearly the Master of None), I’m touting my strengths (real or imagined), I am moving in the flesh.  And my flesh, by its very nature, cannot give birth to things of the Spirit.

So as I’m travelling around this mountain pass—AGAIN—I’m asking the Holy Spirit to continue to be my teacher and helper.  I have learned the power of the truth of 2 Corinthians 10:5 “… and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Is it possible that I need to also apply that truth to appointments, opportunities, projects and such?  What if before I said “yes” to something, I actually took it to Jesus and made the very idea of it obedient to His plan for me, rather than simply seeing a tiny opening in my calendar that I can fill.  What a concept?  How many more truly good things could I say “yes” to, if I were simply willing to say “no” when “no” is what Jesus wanted me to say?

What do you need to take to Jesus?  What do you need to say “yes” to?  I’m praying that the next season of ministry for you will be filled with grace beyond measure and absolutely no crazy from self-imposed chaos!

(This article was written in September 2012 and published in Share the Music a newsletter from Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing for folks  involved in children's music.  It is shared her with permission.)

My Rice Story

This is going to come as no surprise to those in the culinary know, but all rice is not the same.  I'm ashamed to say I've cooked as long as I have and am just discovering this in my own kitchen.    I only feel the freedom to express this here because I'm pretty sure my friend, Clarissa, doesn't read my blog. She would probably cackle at me and my lack of rice knowledge.  She makes some of the most incredible Filipino rice dishes.

So, here's my back story.  I grew up in South Carolina.  Yes, we eat rice in South Carolina, but in the Piedmont (foothills for you non-Sandlappers) where I lived, potatoes were reigning king of the table--mashed, fried, baked, stewed--several times a week.  Smother them in brown gravy, white gravy, add cheese.  It was potatoes!  OK, maybe it was just my house, but I actually have no memory of ever seeing  my mom cook a pot of actual, real rice until after I had moved away and gotten married.   Although we did occasionally eat a sort of rice imitation.

I will admit it.  I was reared on Minute Rice.  Shocking, I know.  In fact, one of my favorite lunches during the summers--when I was home alone and there was no adult around to say that I shouldn't just eat a bowl of rice for lunch--was a bowl of Minute Rice with copious amounts of butter, salt and pepper.  I think one of the first meals I cooked for Michael included Minute Rice.  He married me anyway.  Bags of rice were foreign to me.  Seriously, I remember with some trepidation the first time I cooked "real" rice.  I don't remember how it turned out, but it didn't scare me off.  I cannot recall the last time I purchased Minute Rice, and I wouldn't be caught dead with it in my grocery cart now.  Yes, you heard me.  Would not be caught dead!

And I did explore the rice world just a bit.  Alright, I bought brown rice and white rice.  But it is only recently that I discovered that all rices are not the same.  I know.  I've seen the shelves at the grocery store.  Their names are so intriguing.  But come on.  How different could they be?  Night and day, people.  Night and day.

And now because of a new cook book The Feed Zone Cookbook, I've been introduced to a new level of loving and cooking rice. It started with my making rice cakes for Michael to eat on his bike rides.  Now, put aside any dried-up, air-puffed rice cake of your past.  These are wonderful sweet and savory sticky rice cakes that are so delicious.   I know for some of my foodie friends it may seem absurd that I just recently bought my first bag of Calrose rice.  Why didn't I know about this before?  This is some seriously good rice.

I hoping to get up enough culinary courage to make homemade risotto. I'm sure you'll hear about it.  But for know, I'm just going to feast for a while in this new rice heaven.

You know the old Indian math folklore of Rani outsmarting the Raja by asking for the payment of one grain of rice, then doubling the grains of rice every day for thirty days?   Well, make mine Calrose, please!

Love, Sweat and Tears

Today, I gathered with some teens, young adults and a couple other adults for our weekly gathering at Wherry for our summer outreach called Love, Sweat and Tears.  I knew the Bible  passage for our morning devotion was to come from Matthew 5:13-15--salt and light.

Alan Smith, one of our other leaders, alerted me that Bruce Coble (we love Bruce!) had several different jobs we could work on, but the one he would  really like to tackle (if we were up to the challenge) was to clean out an apartment that had been abandoned for about a week.   "Up for the challenge?"  The gauntlet had been thrown.  We would accept the challenge.   I knew that's what we were supposed to do--where we were supposed to be.

Bruce gathered with us after prayer to lay out the conditions we'd be headed into.  He told us that the family had been living in real despair and darkness and abuse.  He encouraged us to pray again before we went to work.

The team was dismissed to gather supplies and walk to the home.  I explained to the kids a little about what we might be in for.  Michael, the property manager at Wherry, told us a little more and encouraged us to go in as warriors, not afraid of spiritual darkness.  We did.

We prayed.  We prayed for our hearts and minds to be protected.  We prayed for the family that had just moved out, who had been unable to receive the blessings of being the Wherry community.  We prayed that God would set them on a new path.  We prayed for this home to be reclaimed as a place of blessing. We prayed for the cycles of poverty and .abuse and hopelessness to be broken.

None of that prepared us for what we would see and smell.  Later in the day, we were saying what we always say,  "Why didn't we take 'before' pictures?"  But today, I thought no.  I would never want the new family to see what this was.  Molly Watkins said it well, "We don't want that image frozen in time."  So we only took pictures of the apartment after three truck loads of garbage and debris had been removed, the carpet had been pulled up, and the windows cleared .

To say that the old windows at Wherry aren't energy efficient is a gross understatement.  To combat this, the family had filled the windows with styrofoam sheets and some sort of insulating foam  There was little to no light in the bedrooms at all.  This added to the despair.  So we pulled down the dust-caked, soiled curtains, disposed of the broken and sad mini-blinds and cut away the stryofoam insulation.  We let the light in.

The team who worked outside scooped up the rankest garbage I've ever seen and smelled.  Really the only thing missing was human waste.  They pulled unimaginable amounts of garbage from the hedges--a couch and a dirt bike were hiding in there.  They trimmed and tamed the wild backyard.  It was shocking the crazy amount of work those kids did out there.

The team inside bagged up vile garbage.  Some too vile to talk about here.  Some things I wish your kids hadn't seen.  Things no child should see.  And this family was living here just a week ago.  In this stuff, this stench, this mess.  Just a week ago.  Oh, Jesus!  My heart cries.

We salvaged some clothes that family had bagged up and some expensive sports equipment just in case they show up in the next week to claim them.  Hopefully the cockroaches will have scurried from the bags if the family comes for them.

We been given a rare opportunity this year.  A few folks (ministry teams from other churches) will work on the apartment on other days, but by and large the rest of our Wednesdays this summer will be spent loving on this apartment.  We don't always get to see a project to completion.  We're often just a step in the process.   We prime the walls.  Another team paints.  We scrape the metal cabinets.  Another teams finishes them.  We scrape up the old tiling from the 50s and another team lays new flooring.  It's a process.   I'm looking forward to seeing our teens spend some extended time in this one home.  Hopefully by the end of the summer, it will be ready for a new family to move in.

So we'll keep being salt and light at this one little corner of Wherry.  Next week we'll scrub and clean and scrape another layer of grime away, getting ready for the next phase.  And slowly, but surely, this house will become a home!

It's a good summer for Love, Sweat and Tears!

2011 in the Rear View

Here are just a few highlights of 2011.

December

Several culinary milestones were met. I cooked my first-ever Christmas Day dinner. Yes, I realize that I've been married for eons, but we've never, ever been home all day on Christmas Day, so it was my first. The best thing was we got to share it with our great friends, the Clements! I also managed to prepare my first prime rib roast for Christmas Eve, (I'll be doing that again as soon as it's on sale.) and made perhaps the second worst dish of my married life--since the spinach lasagna fiasco of 1985. Yeah, it was bad! It's the dish that shall not be named. Birthday month for Andrew. We repaired the Camry for him for his birthday. I think he got the best end of that deal!

November

Daniel and Bethany were married on Saturday, Nov. 19, just a mere 14 weeks after he proposed to her in Seattle, Washington, on a hot air balloon ride and a critical 8 weeks after returning home from the extended stay in Seattle. Their day was gorgeous and suited them uniquely. I think I was kept sane in November by the commitment to log into facebook with a daily status update of what I was thankful for. That was a great exercise for me. Sometimes, it was petty. Sometimes significant. Always thankful.

October-September

September and October can best be characterized as a blur of wedding planning, teaching, and dealing with random breakouts of hives along with my normal life of being a wife and mom. I don't remember much else about these hectic days except that Daniel and Andrew came home from Seattle. Bethany moved back from Seattle. Andrew moved out of our home to live with the Woerners and spread his wings a bit. Susanna started on her journey of becoming the only child at home. Music directing/conducting for Annie was a highlight of September! Oh, and with no pomp or circumstance, Daniel's diploma from MTSU arrived in the mail. Woot! I am the mom of a college graduate.

August

August was filled with final rehearsals for Annie. I've determined that I am just a good enough actor to play the conductor in Annie. I think I strained a muscle in my hand practicing conducting, and I've never spent so much time trying to master just a few bars of music. Michael is a patient, but picky teacher. His criticisms and tips made me much better at my job. Additionally, I added two new schools to my teaching rotation. It was a lot and maybe too much too soon especially with the upcoming wedding, but I didn't know about that when I took the jobs. Daniel and Bethany got engaged! The boys moved to Seattle for a short time--I miss them!

July and June

We vacationed in Virginia with Michael's family--mom, dad, sister, her husband, her three kids and their spouse and grandson, along with my kids, and Aunt Edith. It was wonderfully relaxing. Hope we get to do that again in a couple of years. Daniel finished up his coursework for school in Chester just in the nick of time. July is birthday month for Daniel. Susanna became a licensed driver. Daniel, Andrew and Susanna went to Mexico on a missions trip. We all volunteered at Wherry Housing over the summer.

May

Andrew graduated from high school, but didn't really want a party or celebration. Looking back that was probably a mistake. He's planning to take a year off before going to college. Hope it's no longer than that. Birthday month for Michael. Two high school graduates, one to go. There is a light at the end of my homeschooling journey.

April

I played the part of M'Lynn in Lamplighter's Theatre Company's production of Steel Magnolias. The cast was delightful and the role was quite cathartic for me. It's a role I'd always wanted to play, so I guess I can mark that off my imaginary bucket list. April 15 marked the first anniversary of my mom's death. We tried to get my dad to visit us during that time, but

he wanted to stay home. Mistake. Maybe next year.

January-February-March

We all readjusted to having Daniel back in the house after his semester in England. Scholl and work and life moves at a face pace for the Fraziers. Bethany returned from her trip to India, then decided to move to Seattle for a season. At the end of January, following Michael's lead, I started using MyFitnessPal and began my journey toward reshaping my body. Led a class on Wednesday nights of intercessory prayer for the nations. Wow! Just wow on how that can change and rock your world.

So in the Rear View 2011 was a lot about loss and gain. Fewer children live in my home, but I gained daughter perfectly matched to my son. I lost control of situations and gained renewed faith again and again. I've lost students, but gained graduates. I gained experience and lost inhibitions. I lost pounds (40-ish so far) and gained mobility and energy.

Here's to reflection and review. Here's to favored days to come and new mercy and grace each day!

Goes by in a Blink

A blink and a blur--that's how I'd describe this past year. The other night as the family gathered around the table we began to talk about the milestones of the year. Here are a few of our highlights:

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in January and in April passed away.
Michael's dad survived the Haitian earthquake and has made several trips back to help with building and transition.
Parker DuBose was born in January--our neice's son.
Susanna got her driving permit.
Daniel and Susanna went to Mexico on a mission's trip.
Andrew went on a six-week vacation to Madrid.
The boys took an eventful road trip to Chicago with four other friends. (That trip deserves its own blog.)
Andrew started college classes during his senior year.
Daniel moved to Chester, England to complete a semester abroad at the University of Chester with MTSU. (Back home now to finish up his senior year.)
Weeks of physical therapy to try to get me pain-free and restore full use of my knees.
Bethany went to India on Dec. 14 and is still there. (returning soon!)
We watched young families have babies, watched God start new families at several weddings and attended more funerals than probably ever before in one year.
I won the championship in our fantasy football league.

And Michael is still the most incredible man I've ever met, and I love him with every ounce of my being.

Not to mention the daily faithfulness of God in all things--big and small--along the way.

Indeed, it was a blink and a blur. What a journey!

Fact Checker

There's no easy way to address this so I'm just going to jump right in there.

I have a serious problem. I'm checking out my facebook and see that one of my friends has posted a video of a penguin head slapping another penguin so that the penuin falls and ends up in the icy water. And I laugh. That's not my problem. Everyone loves a bit of slapstick.

This is my problem. As I watched it again, I began to wonder if it was a real video or if it was fake. That in itself isn't a problem. I sure many people probably wondered the same thing.

Here's my problem, where I seem to deviate from the norm. I spent the next few minutes (I refuse to reveal just how many minutes in order to save some of my dignity) searching the internet for evidence of the validity of the video. I googled and regoogled, and I snoped and searched until I was fairly satisfied that it was indeed a doctored video. Awe. That felt good.

Then I watched it again--the original video clip. This time I focused on the movement of the penguin's flipper. The flipper seemed to bend at an odd angle that didn't quite seem natural, and then I found myself on a zoocam with live feed into the penguin habitat to see if the flipper movement of the penguin on the video could possibly be natural.

Oh, yes. I definitely have a problem.

My Mom

Following are the general thoughts and comments I delivered at my mom's funeral on April 18. They are most likely not in the order I gave them that day or even exactly what I said that day.

Thank you for joining our family today to celebrate the life of my mom, Carolyn Mathis.

I want to say a special "Thank you" to my sisters for the countless hours that they put into caring for my mom, for the nights they spent away from their families. My mom taught them well.

My comments today are loosely entitled "Making Memories." This phrase is one of my mom's favorite phrases. She employed it often during our childhood, many times when what was happening was unpleasant. She would pipe up, "We're making memories." She used it often with me as she tried to do something with my curly hair. As you can she her attempts to tame it failed.

Many of you know my mom in many different capacities. You know her as a friend, a co-worker, a Sunday school teacher, church member. I want to tell you a few things about my mom that you may not know.

In our family she was the best back scratcher. She was a patient stick-shift teacher. According to her local grandchildren she was a talking phone book with better and more accurate information than "Ask Jeeves." She was a champion giblet gravy maker. She was the worst voice mail message leaver.

A couple of years ago on Easter Sunday, mom left me a message. It went something like this (read in slow, sombre monotone): "Rhonda, Michael, Daniel, Andrew, Susanna, This is Grandma Carolyn. I just called to say Happy Easter." When the message started I just knew someone had die because of the tone of her voice.

Papa Farley called her Cat and after his death, my sister, Theresa kept the nickname alive. Cat is an ironic nickname for my mom because she had an almost unhealthy fear of cats. I think that was a result of her brother, Ronnie, tossing a cat onto her head.

She wasn't a gourmet cook, but her stewed potatoes, fried okra and fried squash couldn't be beat.

To her grandchildren she was Grandma Carolyn, and sometimes Graham Cracker.

Twenty years ago, she began setting aside a portion of her vacation time each year to keep my kids during the summer. I was the envy of all of my friends. I thought that was what all grandmas did.

When our family vacationed at Lake Lure my mom with have evening lessons with the kids complete with activity pages, prizes and a dollar for someone to win.

I am convinced that Black Friday is a successful retail event solely based on the efforts of my mom. She started the tradition in our family of getting up before 4 a.m. to begin our shopping. It was breakfast at the Waffle House with deer hunters, shop, snack shop, shop, lunch, shop, shop and a stop by Krispy Kreme on the way home.

It really is a miracle that my sisters and I didn't think we had a long lost relative named "Clarance." Every time we shopped my mom said, "Look for the clarance." (Clearance.)

My mom wasn't a seamstress. She could sew on a button, but I doubt she could sew a straigth seam, but she could spot shotty workmanship in a garmet a mile away. I can't recall how many times she made us put down something we wanted to buy because the seams weren't straight or the cut wasn't right or the stripes didn't match.

If there was an award for the most words ever read in the Gaffney Ledger, I think my mom would win. In fact, according to my dad, this was probably one of the most puzzling things about my mom. If she went out of town, someone saved all the Ledgers for her while she was gone. Upon her return she would spent hours reading them all.

The video showed my mom fishing. I'm not so sure she liked fishing all that much, but she did like to reel them in. Most of all she liked spending time on the pontoon with daddy. In fact that is probably the best marital advice my mom ever gave me--spending the time with her husband, being there with him.

You probably didn't know that for almost two years my mom ran a roadside breakfast stand. Every morning my mom would meet her great-granddaughter, Alyssa, at the end of her driveway with a breakfast to go--a granola bar, egg sandwich, piece of pizza--all delivered with love. Alyssa said after she started eating breakfast at school, Grandma Carolyn and Papa Jerry would sit on the porch and wave to her as she went up the road to school.

She was a pen pal. When her granddaughter Heidi moved away from home to go to Wofford, my mom started a once a week letter campaign to Heidi. Until just a few weeks ago, she wrote Heidi one letter a week for seven years. The letter were clippings or just bits of news, but she didn't want Heidi's mailbox to go week without something in it.

My mom was a hero. One afternoon years ago, we were driving down Colonial Avenue. Smoke was coming from the eaves of a house. My mom stopped the car and went to the door. No one came to the door, but the door was open. My mom went in and came out with a baby that was crying in its crib. The mom and stepped next door to a neighbors house and the kitchen had caught on fire.

My mom married into a singing family, but never thought of herself as a singer. If the person beside her sang soprano, that's what she sang. If she sat in the alto section, she sang alto. I took get delight as a teenager by standing beside her in choir and jumping around to different parts. It would drive her crazy. But my mom was a faithful choir member, and she learned to sing.

When my mom went to the hospital in January, I drove down for a few days to stay with her. Everyone who came to her room got a "Have a blessed day" as they went out.

Our mom poured herself out for her family, and we are so full and so rich and so blessed because of it. So many people have said over the past few days, "Carolyn was a special lady" or "She was such a good person." And she was, but the reason these statements can be made about my mom is because she allowed Jesus to be big in her.

When my dad had to choose a scripture for the prayer card, he went to my mom's Bible and looked through it. He came back with Psalm 100: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord...."

Mrs. Allison my mom's neighbor of 45 years stopped by the week and one of the things she said was, "Please don't let those joyful noises on that porch stop."

You see, I think for my mom spending time with her family, loving on them, pouring out for them, was one of the ways she worshipped the Lord.

(There were many things I forgot to say that day, and many things that these thoughts prompted us to think about. I'm sure there will be more to come.)

A Blur

The past few months have been a blur. On Jan. 18, my mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. On April 15 at 9:47 EST, she went to be with Jesus from her home in South Carolina. She was surrounded by some family members, friends and three hospice nurses. My dad led the charge of singing my mom into glory.

Since January, I have spent parts of 26 days away from home. I say parts because some of those days were travel days where I left my home at 7 a.m. or returned home in the evening. I logged over 7,500 miles on my van and now have a permanent love/hate relationship with 285 around Atlanta. (I know. I'm just joining millions of others.)

I have read more about breast cancer than I ever really wanted to know, performed nursing/care giver tasks that I never imagined I'd be called on to do, and consumed so many Foosh Mints that I may be caffeinated for the rest of the year.

To say that the past 90+ days or so that I've been preoccupied would be a gross understatement. Yet, in my preoccupation God has showed up in miraculous and wonderful ways--and He did it like always using His people--a perfectly timed email or phone call, a hug, a cake, tears shed together.

I'm still processing my experience and have no illusions about this being a quick return to normalcy. In fact, returning to normalcy seems kind of lame right now.

More later.

The 2010 Purge

The Fraziers are in purge mode. Yesterday, I posted on Facebook about donating Michael's circa 80s silk jacket to Goodwill, and it caused a storm of comments that I usually only see when I post about food. I run with an interesting virtual crowd to say the least.

When it comes to purging clothes, I'm pretty good. The items I struggle with have sentimental value--like the t-shirt I got when I attend "College Day" at Lee. Or the Noah's Ark vest that my sister gave me and that one ridiculously small black skirt that I keep telling myself that I will be able to get back into one day. Just so you know, I kept the skirt.

Michael holds on a bit longer thus the silk jacket and a couple of suits that he hadn't worn in 14 years. I really see clothes these days--based on style and quality--as a disposable commodity. Of course, I'm not a fashionista either. My basic wardrobe consists of several pairs of black slacks and a variety of tops to really mix it up. I realized yesterday while cleaning the closet that Michael and I have almost exactly the same number of shoes. Is that typical? I don't think so.

We aren't really hoarders, but it has been interesting to note the things we have kept. It seems we're suckers for chargers and all things cable and cord. We also keep manuals and instructions. I found the manual for the first cell phone I ever had from '98ish. And I found I could track the kids' Christmas presents because for some strange reason I have kept the paperwork that came with the Fisher Price Pirate's Island and Shark Boat, not to mention the Fisher Price color changing flashlight, grill and Lego instructions. It was a funny and telling moment. The sad thing is I had already started a pile of cards and instructions for the things we got this year for Christmas--including the tags that came on the Crocs--I kid you not. You will be glad to know they (the Croc paperwork) is now in the trash. We also keep maps. I think we could track every camping/hiking trip we've ever been on. Wierd, I know. Those have been set aside for their own special purge session. You never know when state parks won't be providing those handy trail guides.

So the whole house is on notice. If it's not nailed down, its reason for being in our house is being questioned. This process will probably take several months because we do have other things to do. When I find something else that is not too embarrassing I'll be sure to share. Maybe.

Blue Moon

Today there will be a Blue Moon, but I probably won't get to see it. Dense cloud cover in Middle Tennessee will obscure the event. But I'll know it's happening all the same. That's what's great about things that are sure, guaranteed. They keeping on happening, faithfully, even when I can't see them with my eyes. That's what I love about walking with Jesus. While adventures course all around, there are quiet, sure, calculated things that keep happening whether I see them or not. Maybe in 2010, my own dense cloud cover will lift a little more, and I'll see more clearly.

What I hope is not a Blue Moon event is my posting here. Call it a resolution, a goal, syntax therapy--I don't care what it's labeled. I've let far too much time slip away without documenting. So I'll see where this ride takes me.

Blessings for 2010.